1. Thucydides, in his pursuit of chronological accuracy, explicitly links the two events at 5.20.1: ‘This treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter, directly after the city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the difference of a few days, from the first invasion of Attica and the commencement of this war.’ The text of the treaty itself, which Thucydides reproduces in 5.19, states that the signing took place on ‘the 25th day of the month of Elaphebolion’, while the City Dionysia is typically dated to 10-14 Elaphebolion. All translations of Thucydides herein are from Crawley in Strassler (1996), with my alterations.

2. Brasidas, he explains, persisted in warring because of the success and honour it brought him, while Cleon did so out of fear that his crimes would be exposed and his slanders discredited in the calm of peacetime.

3. These reasons are also given thorough explanation by Thucydides in 5.16-17.

4. The play's third hypothesis reports that Peace took second place in the comedic competition and was beaten by Eupolis' Flatterers, with Leucon's Phratry placed third. Olson (1998), 1-4, 63-66, provides the play's four hypotheses, as well as commentary on them.

5. See for example, Whitman (1964), 59-118; Henderson (1975), 62-66; Newiger (1980) passim.

6. Both Cassio (1985), 35-41, and Slater (2002), 131, emphasise the fact that Aristophanes' focus in Peace is on the present.

7. The idea of the woman as a ‘necessary evil’ is a well-worn literary topos from Hesiod's Pandora onward. Meanwhile, in the context of ancient comedy, the witty poem of one Susarion of Megara was said to have initiated the Greek comic tradition. His punchline? ‘Women: you can’t live with 'em, can't live without 'em.' See Shaw (1975) and Foley (1982) on the concept of the ‘female intruder’ in Greek drama.

8. Moulton (1981), 93, refers to the phrase ‘to the fields’ (εἰϛ ἀγϱόν) as ‘the watch-word of the comedy,’ while Whitman (1964), 110f., cites its appearance eleven times in the play (at lines 536, 552, 555, 569, 585, 707, 866, 1202, 1249, 1318 and 1329).

9. This ‘situating’ also occurs to a lesser extent in other Aristophanic comedies: the mother and daughter of Dicaeopolis experience it at Ach. 241-62, and Cassio (1985), 32f., also calls attention to its less obvious articulation at the end of Knights. It occurs as well with the figure of Diallage and the ambassadors at Lys. 1173f. and 1273-78.

10. Slater (2002), 115.

11. Translations are from Jeffrey Henderson's Loeb edition of Peace (1998), with my alterations.

12. Women's monstrous appetites and their negative effect on men's lives are first decried by Hesiod in his description of Pandora at Th. 590-612. Taaffe (1993), 40f., devotes a portion of her discussion of this play to the similarity between Peace and Pandora as gifts of ambivalent value for men.

13. According to the slave, Trygaeus has already tried and failed to climb to heaven by himself on ‘light little ladders’ (69) he had made.

14. Olson (1998), 90 ad 111-13; Dover (1972), 33. Similarly, the daughters are never seen or referred to again after this scene.

15. Olson ibid.

16. The hungry daughter who is a problem for her father also appears at Ach. 729-835 and Wasps 605-12, and there too she is subject to sexual humiliation and threats of violence. Rau (1967), 92, suggests this scene is a paratragic adaptation of Eurpides' Aeolus, which dealt with the topic of incest.

17. Sommerstein (1985), 140 ad 123.

18. Interestingly, a scholiast of Lycophron inadvertently corroborates this point by mistakenly equating a variant of this adjective, the proparoxytone γόγγυλοϛ, with the word ϰόνδυλοϛ at Sch. Lyc. 435.

19. Taaffe (1993), 38.

20. Although Henderson (1975), 137, 146 and 200, includes neither βάθοϛ nor the upcoming λιμήν (‘harbour’) at line 144 as metaphorical terms used by Aristophanes for the female genitalia, he does discuss other nautically flavoured terms, such as δέλτα and ισθμόϛ, in that vein. He also has a section on ‘Nautical Terminology’ (162-66) that examines the ‘very popular’ metaphor of rowing or sailing for sexual intercourse. Additionally, the fourth definition of the word λιμήν in LSJ is ‘the source of birth, womb’. Likewise, Henderson does not mention the ἄντϱον (‘cave’), in which Peace is imprisoned in this context either; however, he does explain the edict of death for anyone caught ‘digging her up’ as prohibiting ‘having intercourse with her’ (64).

21. Foteini (2011; accessed 14 Aug 2011). Note that Trygaeus has already referred to the Piraeus as the location of the whores' quarters at line 165. The association thus strengthens the sexual undertone of this father-daughter exchange.

22. Stallybrass (1986), 126f. His focus is on sixteenth-century England; however, his broader analysis is applicable to the ancient world as well.

23. Moulton (1981), 89. He also provides here a catalogue of all usages of τϱίβειν in the play.

24. Henderson (1975), 64. He also provides examples of the use of τϱίβειν as sexual slang at 176.

25. It should be noted that the word used most often for pestle in this scene, ὰλετϱίβανοϛ, is also linked to the verb τϱίβειν.

26. MacDowell (1995), 193.

27. McGlew (2001), 75-77, discusses the issue of the missing agõn and argues that resistance is expressed in other, more subtle and less conventional ways in the play.

28. They are also unsanctioned by the gods: recall that Zeus has decreed death for anyone caught digging her up, while Hermes will express reluctance at helping Trygaeus for fear of punishment. He even refers to the chorus as ‘bigger thieves than ever’ at 402, although at 418-24 he is eventually (and characteristically) won over with bribes and honours.

29. Dover (1972), 33, observes that their manner of arrival in heaven is not made clear, nor is any mention made of their return to earth.

30. Hubbard (1991), 151.

31. The fluid identity of the chorus has consumed a significant part of the scholarly attention this play has received. Most agree that Aristophanes' emphasis here is on social homogeneity, though its gendered aspect is rarely given consideration. See Dover (1972), 138f., and Hubbard (1991), 241 f., on the issue of the chorus' political identity (Greek or Athenian?); see also McGlew (2001), 84-87, on its negotiation of urban and rural identities.

32. See duBois (1988), 121-23, on the gendered significance of ovens in Aristophanes generally. See also lines 1127-58, where the chorus imagines life after peace as a return to rural autarchy and abundance. In this vision, mastery over the sexual, the domestic and the agricultural realms similarly merge: the men sing of sitting ‘by the fire with friends’, ‘roasting some acorn’ and ‘kissing the Thracian maid while the wife's in the bath’.

33. This is the second antistrophe (583-97). On Trygaeus' paradoxical role as ‘stratēgos of peace’ in this scene, see McGlew (2001), 86.

34. Sommerstein (1985), 159 ad 564-67.

35. The rare verb τϱιαινόω, translated here as ‘breaking up’, means literally ‘to use or heave with the trident’. Its association with combat or violent activity in general is only converted into an agricultural context by the clarifying dative of instrument τῇ διϰὲλλῃ, ‘a mattock or two-pronged hoe’.

36. Slater (2002), 123.

37. The suggestion of Henderson (1975), 64, that the ‘box’ (ϰίστην, 666) of truces Peace previously offered the city (only to be rejected three times) is a pun on the word ϰύσθοϛ (‘cunt’) would seem to further corroborate this view. See Eupolis fr. 54 and Plato Com. fr. 81 in Edmonds (1957), 350f. and 516f. Sommerstein (1985), xvii n.5, provides extensive bibliography on the staging of this scene.

38. In the lost second version of this play (likely produced after 412 BCE), Aristophanes did introduce the speaking character, Georgia (‘Agriculture’) as a counterpart to Opora and Theoria, who seems to have spoken on behalf of or in place of the statue. See Olson (1998), xlviii-li, and Henderson (2007), 253-57.

39. At least this is what is suggested when Trygaeus says, ‘Why do you turn your head away?’ at 682. There is much speculation as to whether the statue was actually made to move its head (and thus display greater agency) in this scene.

40. The phrase is preserved by Menander; see Dys. 842ff., Sam. 726f. and Perik. 1013f.

41 Sommerstein (1985), 173 ad 849.

42. Loraux (1993), 210. She goes on to note that because of the destruction of the countryside during the war, the journey to it in Peace seems more difficult than Trygaeus' journey to heaven, and therefore its completion is a testament to his virility.

43. Cassio (1985), 121.

44. According to Harriot (1986), 125, the cultivation of grapevines, which Trygaeus (as his name implies) is especially keen to resume, often took place in separate enclosures.

45 Revermann (2006), 226.

46 Henderson (1975), 66.

47 Whitman (1964), 111.

48. I have left this vexed line untranslated. See Olson (1998), 241 ad 896a-b, who concludes it ‘ought probably to be expelled’.

49. Slater (2002), 127.

50. Sommerstein (2009), 239f., argues that it is precisely by ‘appearing as she does’ (i.e., nude) that Theoria ‘is automatically categorised as a hetaira’, despite coming from Olympus.

51. In her influential discussion of the male gaze in film, Mulvey (2009), 438, deploys the term ‘sadistic voyeurism’ to define a way of looking in which ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjugating the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness’.

52. Henderson (1998), 537 n.71, explains that the ‘isthmus’ is a slang term for ‘the place connecting two legs’. Note also that, according to LSJ, the verb πεϱιγϱάφω more generally means ‘to define, limit, terminate or annul’. The slave's sexual mapping of Theoria's body anticipates the treatment of Diallage at Lys. 1157-88.

53. Bowie (1993), 146, notes that this installation of the cult statue in the city is known as a hidrusis, and it requires a first-fruit offering presented in small pots. The mention of pots recalls those of the Council, which were placed on Theoria's ‘pot-holder’ before the war.

54. The establishment of a real public cult of Peace at Athens would not occur until 374 BCE. Both Sommerstein (1985), 181 ad 1020, and Olson (1998), 113 ad 221, summarise the ancient evidence.

55. Aristophanes revisits this confusion and ambivalence over the place of women a decade later in Lysistrata, but even at this early point he signals his interest in the issue and offers a brief preview of the approach he will later take to representing it when he has Trygaeus continue his prayer to Peace with the cry, ‘Release us from battles and tumults, so we may call you Lysimache’ (991f.).

56. Henderson (1998), 549 n.76.

57. See most recently Hughes (2012), 207f., also Gerö and Johnsson (2001), Henderson (1991), and Podlecki (1990) arguing for women's presence in the theatre; contra Goldhill (1994).

58. Henderson (1998), 142.

59. Cixous (1986), 65.

60. A version of this paper was presented at Feminism and Classics V: Bringing It All Back Home, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI, 8-10 May 2008. I would like to thank those who commented on it then, as well as those who have provided insights thereafter.